Making a career change at 35. Advice?

I currently have my own graphic design and marketing company and still do websites and other internet stuff. But business isn't what it used to be and I'm also becomming quite burned out on it. I'm good at what I do but there just aren't enough clients who really want to spend the money and time for good work, so most jobs aren't all that interesting.

So I'm thinking about dropping everything and doing something completely different. I have a BA in philosophy from UC Santa Barbara and then spent 6 years in Japan teaching, designing, writing for magazines, and trying my hand at publishing my own magazine: I'm reasonably fluent in Japanese (and still use it daily). I've worked in market research, dot.com start ups, a real design firm, and then for the last few years on my own (outsourcing or partnering as needed).

The problem is that I'm 35 and have a wife and two young kids. So I can't completely drop eveything to reinvent myself. If I could, the race mechanic school at Sears Point sounds fun, ha!

I know this forum has people from all sorts of professions and so I'm wondering what you all might recommend that a guy like me look into. My goal is not to make millions: just to make a good living at something reasonably interesting that provides for my family, and has a reasonably good long term outlook for job security here in the US.

Keep in mind that I have a family and enjoy spending at least some time with them and also need to have some income at all times: this may rule out something like law school for example. I also have very little capital available for investment and thanks to some mistakes in the dot com boom days don't have good credit either. Boy, I'm a mess, aren't I? ha!

Thanks in advance for any ideas,

Rich

 

Thanks for the ideas and advice everyone.

Good suggestion Faisal! That's actually what I had thought to do when I returned to the states. One of the things I did in Tokyo was teach English to Japanese business people (and research doctors, lawyers, etc.) and I realized that I wasn't teaching them language as much as I was helping them understand how to interact with Americans in the business/academic world.

So I pictured myself doing the same thing for American business people wishing to do business in Japan: teach them basic greetings in Japanese, about the importance of business cards and how/when to present them, what to do when invited out to drink after meetings (still a very important part of business there) and how to avoid various cultural faux pas. I also could take advantage of connections I have there to help clients find partners, set up an office or secretary service, find out about customs regulations, shipping, etc.

This would be very interesting work for me but upon returning to California from Tokyo, I realized that since I had gone to Japan right out of university, I had basically no contacts in the business world here and I just wasn't able to make enough contacts and put my plan it into action before being offered a design job and going down that path into the dot com world.

My Japanese skills are not to the point that I would be a great translator of lengthy business or technical documents or contracts (though I have people I hire to do this when needed). My spoken Japanese is much stronger and I think I would do well as an interpreter for those traveling to Japan or meeting Japanese clients here though. I also thought of offering my services as a bit of a "spy": meetings with the Japanese are often conducted in English but I could go along and then tip off my clients about what the Japanese are saying amongst themselves in Japanese or what their body language is telling me. Just sitting there and saying nothing would be perfectly natural to the Japanese since they'd have members of their team who probably won't speak up either. I feel this "spy" work would be valuable and save time because the Japanese often do not want to come out and say something directly and Americans can sometimes be pretty lousy at reading this stuff. So they go round and round, with the Americans not realizing what the real sticking point may be. They also might misinterpret body language (simple example: when a Japanese person smiles, it is just as likely that they embarrassed or nervous and not pleased), or what the Japanese person really meant by something they said in English.

I also wouldn't mind being hired to "take care of" Japanese business people when visiting the states for meetings here (drive them around and whatnot: the better they are taken care of, the better chance you have of getting their business because they'll believe they'll get equal service from you on business issues), and likewise would be happy to go along with Americans to Japan to just take care of travel, lodging, any interpreting that needs to be done while moving about, etc. I have no problems with traveling for work (as long as I touch home now and then). I've let my visa lapse in Japan since we've been living here but can get one immediately (since my wife is Japanese) if it's required for a lengthy posting in Japan and we also have my wife's parent's old house in Yokohama (20 min from Tokyo proper) for quick housing needs.

So I guess my questions are...do any of you work for corporations that do business with Japan or do business yourself and if so, would you find any of these services something you could use? What would you expect to pay for this sort of training? Would you find having a Japanese speaker on your team helpful for meetings? Are there any other needs in this arena you might have? If you don't have a need, how would recommend I go about finding those that do and selling them on my service?

Thanks again,

Rich